Cena_markWell goddammit! If we're not going to be pushing the limits of space exploration then somebody has to.

Menudo con quesoLimits schmimits. Their first woman astronaut? Pssht. We BLEW UP a female teacher over a quarter century ago and were making Christa Macaulliffe jokes while they were still coming out of PTSD from the Cultural Revolution.

Cena_markAs bad as our space program is right now, they're still 40 years too late.

Caminante NocturnoLibertarians have no right to brag about this country's achievements, seeing as how they are largely responsible for making further such achievements impossible.

Cena_markLibertarians can appreciate the space program as libertarians are responsible for America going to the moon. Who built NASA? Who got us to the moon? Individuals with individual rights working hard, studying, researching, and doing all it took to get us there. Individuals like JFK, Neal Armstrong, and Chuck Yeager.
Was China going to space in the 60s? Of course not. They didn't have individual rights. They didn't have the freedom to make space travel happen.

STABFACE^^^This^^^ is the most hilarious thing I've read in a long time.

Oscar WildcatDamn Stab, you beat me to it! Cena man, that shit is funny. Preybymail, read this comment and learn.

Also, for the spergers out there hitting the reply button; Communists and federal employees built the space program as we know it today. Now you can relax.

Cena_markGranted the space program its self was a government program and the Astronauts mainly coming from the military (The present commander of the Space Station is a USCG Captain) aviation was mainly pioneered by the private sector. The Wright Brothers, Charles Lindbergh, and Howard Hughes all accomplished greatness in aviation all thanks to their private sector motivations. (Except for the first trans-Atlantic flight, which was achieved by a Coast Guard pilot.)
The private sector made the greatest leaps and bounds in the field of aviation. It wasn't until capitalism itself was threatened by communism that the government had to step in and take the Russians on head to head. By beating Russia in the space race we proved that free capitalist societies are superior.

SteamPoweredKleenex"Individuals with individual rights working hard, studying, researching, and doing all it took to get us there."

All using government programs to afford that education, researching with government grants, being paid by government contracts, at the behest and directive of the government via a government agency, NASA.

They weren't working in a sweatshop, but Libertarian philosophy didn't even launch the first satellites. Sorry, Cena.

Jet Bin FeverCompetition with the USSR is what got us to push the first space race, and I can only hope that competition with China will end up fueling a second space race as well. It's about the only goddamn cool thing left to do as a nation.

Cena_markCompetition, which is a capitalist concept will make us better.

Cena_markIts funny that countries competing against each other could possibly lead to more advancement than countries working together. It'll be like the people's interest in wrestling during the Monday Night Wars compared to now.

SteamPoweredKleenexThe problem with the US/USSR competition was that it allowed for things like McCarthyism, the lies about "the missile gap," defense spending the likes of which wasn't seen until Iraq II and Afghanistan, Vietnam, Korea, and countless other wasteful, if not criminal, activities all done under the blanket of "defending America against Communism."

It's like saying the economy prospered under the Hatfields and McCoys because most people owned gun stores.

if you can lie to your country enough that they'll be willing to outspend anyone else to stay safe, then that will lead to more advancement.

if the country is smart enough to work with one or more other countries and their combined investment is more than yours, they will produce more advances.

Think the only advantage capitalism has is that it can print more money and has a higher credit limit.

SteamPoweredKleenexExcept after you "win," you're still stuck with this giant military-industrial complex that demands (and gets) more and more money, in spite of the "threat" no longer existing. Then you've got the added expense of combat with people you'd been arming for decades solely on the basis that they were "against" your enemy.

Advancements are all well and good, but much like our subsidizing the oil industry, it's hard to definitively show we've broken even on blood, treasure, and security, much less come out ahead.

RockBoltNo, competition with the USSR got us to dump everything into getting to the moon, and when we got there and realized the Soviets were not in competition anymore, we dropped it and spent 4 decades in low earth orbit, instead of building and advancing on what we spent so lavishly for.

What we need is the national will to go back to the moon and on to mars (AND STAY THERE) for the scientific and exploratory accomplishments that they are, not as a race that we stop caring about when someone wins